


the hand that sews time

by glorious_spoon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-24
Updated: 2011-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:26:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas, and everything they know how to give each other. Takes place somewhere after 6.07, general spoilers for this season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the hand that sews time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zatnikatel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zatnikatel/gifts).



  
It's not the first time they've done this. The span of Cas' borrowed skin is familiar to Dean's hands, the way his breath hitches, the wild sound of his heart. He pushes his face into Dean's neck, mouth open, breathing him in.

This isn't romance. It's never been like that between them, and anyway, Dean wouldn't have the first clue how to go about romancing Cas even if he wanted to. This is comfort, pure and simple.

Or, you know, not so pure. What with the whole undressing an angel thing.

Cas is murmuring snatches of words against his skin. Old words, the syllables of Enochian rolling off his tongue like bells. He's always been a talker.

"Shh," Dean murmurs, like he's gonna make it all better. Like he has a goddamn clue how to fix anything. The buttons of Cas' stupid office-drone shirt are small and slippery in his fingers, and it takes him longer than it should to get them undone. Cas doesn't help. Cas never helps. Dean's not actually entirely sure Cas even knows how to undress himself. "Shh, hey. Cas. I gotcha, man."

Cas pulls away enough to let Dean slide the shirt off his shoulders. He's pale under his clothes, gracefully muscled and slighter than Dean. It's crazy, how fragile he looks. Just a man, underneath it all, or something close enough to a man that it doesn't matter.

His eyes are inhuman, fierce blue, both alien and familiar. "I know you do."

***

This wasn't why Dean called him. He can't even remember why he called him. It wasn't anything important.

Just the empty room, the peeling wallpaper and the burn of whiskey in his belly making him one part restless and three parts stupid. Sam was gone again, off drowning puppies or whatever it is he does for kicks these days. The Impala was still parked outside and Dean's driven plenty drunker than this, but he reached for his cell phone instead of his keys.

He's really not sure why.

  


***

"Shh," he whispers again.

"It's alright." Castiel's fingers are under his chin, drawing his head up; his face is flushed and his expression incongruously calm. "It's alright, Dean."

Dean kisses him. It's just to shut him up, or so he tells himself.  


***

He always knows when Castiel is in the room. Even during that last year, when Cas was losing his grace like shed wing feathers and couldn't pop into existence right smack in the middle of Dean's personal space, he always knew. It was like an extra sense tuned on angel frequency. Or maybe just Cas frequency. What the hell ever.

That's why he didn't turn around when Cas dropped lightly out of thin air to land on the carpet behind him. "You ever answer your freakin' phone? No, wait, let me guess. Cell reception in Heaven's a _bitch_."

"Dean," Castiel said reproachfully, and Dean almost smiled. His glass was empty, and he set it on the nightstand as he turned.

"Long time no see."

"I was here last week," Cas said.

"Technically," Dean said, "you were in Illinois last week."

Castiel inclined his head, unmoved. "I was with you last week."

Last week, Dean was still shaking off the leftovers of a vampiric hangover and was the farthest thing on Earth from good company. Not that he's usually good company these days, so Cas is probably used to that. "Yeah, whatever."

"I'm busy, Dean. Did you call me for a reason?"

He shrugged, deliberately slow. It's the kind of thing he would have done to annoy Sam, back when he was still Sam, and while it's never actually worked on Cas, the habit is hard to shake. "Nah."

Castiel sighed, but didn't blip back to his important angel business. "You're an idiot."

"Uh," Dean said, but Cas was suddenly a whole lot closer, looking exasperated and rumpled and angelic in a way that pulled a startled smile onto Dean's face. And then Cas was kissing him, hard and precise like he hadn't since that last nameless roadside motel on the way to Detroit, more than a year ago. Dean found himself tilting into it, hands on Cas' cheeks, his jaw, stubble under his palms. Rough heat, and a giddy exhilaration that he knew better than he had any right to. Kissing Cas has always felt like free-fall.

Okay, he could work with this.  


***

There are two perfectly good beds in the room, but Dean ignores them, pins Cas against the wall by his wrists just to feel him yield. It always feels a little dangerous to do this, kind of like wrestling a hurricane, the edge of awareness that if Castiel doesn't want to give in, he won't.

He always does, though, drops his head back, eyes falling shut, baring the perfect line of his throat. Dean slides a leg between his thighs, leans to bite at the juncture of his shoulder where the skin is thin and hot and he can feel the hurried pulse of blood beneath it.

Cas arches into him, warm and pliant, wrists still pinned against the wall. He moans low in his throat when Dean lines their hips up and grinds against him and it's good, it's fucking better than good. He knows this. He's good at this, and maybe there's not a whole lot about his life that he's in control of these days, but he can control this. He can feel Cas come apart in helpless little shudders, hands freeing themselves easily from Dean's grip to tangle in his hair as he slides down to his knees.

He makes short work of the buckle and zipper, and Cas' fingers tighten painfully when Dean strokes his cock, slow and teasing, and leans forward to take him in his mouth.

He takes his time about it, savors the slow roll of Cas' hips, the smooth hot shape of his dick and the taste of his skin, the way he pulls Dean's hair a little too hard, like he forgets his own strength. He's talking again, too. Dean can't really bring himself to care. Can't really hear it over the blood pounding in his ears anyway, the ragged sound of his own breathing. His hands find their way to Cas' hips, dig in deep enough that it would leave marks if he were the kind of being that could be bruised, and then Cas is shuddering, arching, coming with a hoarse, broken sound.

It's wild and too intense and it never, not once, fails to completely wreck him. That he can do this.

He pulls away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and leans for a moment against Cas' bare thigh. His jaw aches, and he's so hard that the scrape of his zipper as he shifts position makes him suck in a startled breath across his teeth.

Cas' fingers slide through his hair, gentle this time, and then he's sinking down to the floor and kissing Dean, just pulling him in and kissing him until he's dizzy with it.

And hey, looks like he's getting the trick of clothes after all, because he's nimbly undoing the button of Dean's jeans almost before Dean notices what he's doing, the curious brush of his knuckles gentle against Dean's belly.

"You've been practicing," Dean mumbles against his lips, and Cas pulls away enough to give him a quizzical look. Dean laughs, breathlessly, shakes his head and raises his arms for Cas to tug his shirt off. "Never mind." Then, jeans pushed down and the cool shock of air, "Fuck, _Cas_."

He says it again when Cas gets his boxers shoved out of the way, when he topples him back onto the floor and kisses his thighs, his hips, his belly, soft wet mouth and the sharp sting of teeth, slow and patient and fucking maddening. Just that, Cas' name spilling out of his mouth over and over again, like it's the only word he knows.  


***

The end up sprawled on the floor afterward, the rough carpet digging into Dean's shoulders and bare ass. Cas looks thoroughly debauched, shirtless and flushed, dress pants still unbelted and loose around his narrow hips. He's tracing careful, random patterns on Dean's belly. It tickles.

"You should go to bed," he says eventually.

Dean puts an arm over his eyes and groans. "I do not need a freakin' babysitter right now."

Castiel's finger traces around his belly button and then up, skimming delicately over a nipple before finding the edge of the handprint on his shoulder. He's become used to the scar by now, the way it's hotter than the rest of his skin and weirdly sensitive, but Cas' touch still makes him hiss. There's no way in hell he's gonna get up for it again so soon, but that doesn't stop a pleasant shiver from running down his spine.

"That's cheating," he grumbles.

"I wish you would take care of yourself." Cas doesn't sound bossy this time, just sad. And that should piss Dean off--this is too much like relationship talk, like the kind of conversations he had with Lisa back when he was still deluded enough to think that was gonna work out, and it's not like that between him and Cas, it's never been like that--but he's too tired to muster up any real annoyance. Maybe Cas has a point.

"Fine," Dean says, levering himself into a sitting position. Cas' hand slips down to rest against his belly, warm and heavy. "I'll go beddie-bye. You gonna tuck me in? Sing me a lullaby?"

"I don't sing."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." He tugs his jeans up, doesn't bother to fasten them again. The edge of the mattress is behind him, covered by slippery polyester bedspread. He pulls himself onto it and flops back, feet still on the floor. "Forget it. Go do--you know, whatever. Angel stuff."

"I could sing for you," Cas says after a moment. He sounds a little uncertain, and Dean blinks, squints at him. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor where Dean left him, all pale bare skin and alien stillness and too-sincere eyes. He looks impossibly innocent, but there's still a crackling, barely-there feel of power vibrating from the surface of him. It wasn't there the last time (the last few times) they did this.

"Nah, man, that's okay."

Cas looks mildly hurt, like he thinks maybe Dean's insulting him, or something. It's funny, how well Dean can still read his expressions. Even all pumped up again on angel mojo, he remembers how to pout. Dean suspects he's responsible for that, and the thought makes him grin. "I don't--"

"Dude, seriously, I was kidding. Just." He licks his lips. "Stay?"

Cas tilts his head and looks at him, stares for long enough to make Dean twitchy, to make him start to wonder if he should take it back or something or--whatever.

"Yes," Cas says at last.

"Yeah?" Dean's voice cracks on the word, and he really kind of hates that.

"Yes," Cas repeats. "I'll stay."

He stands up, picks his way across the room to perch on the edge of the bed like he's not quite sure what the next move should be. He hasn't, Dean realizes, ever seen Cas just sleep. If Cas does sleep. That's just one more in a long list of things he doesn't know.

He takes Cas' hand, gentle like none of this has been, and pulls him down. Pulls them both up until their heads are hitting the pillows and they're fitted together in an awkward sprawl. "There," he says. "Perfect."

Cas holds himself still, tense and unsure, but Dean's about done with giving human lessons for the night. He'll figure it out.

He does, too. Body slowly curving into the space it occupies, muscles unwinding by degrees. His hand moves uncertainly for a moment, then comes to a tentative rest on the edge of Dean's hip.

Dean closes his eyes, breathes out.  


***

He wakes--he thinks he wakes--at some point to slow breathing, a warm, loose body pressed against his chest and soft feathers edged with lightening. Wings like a blanket and an armful of sleeping angel.

When Sam comes in the next morning to get him up, though, he's alone.

Sam stands by the door and surveys the room with bright, intelligent eyes that no longer understand anything at all. He has a coffee in his hand for Dean. He's trying, as much as he knows how. "You ready?"

"Yeah," Dean says, rolling over and sliding off the mattress to land barefoot on the floor. The sheets are warm and rumpled, but there aren't any forgotten clothes scattered around the room, no feathers on the pillow. No sign at all that Cas was here, not that he was expecting one. He has beard burn on his thighs, though, and his skin is still sticky from where he really didn't clean up well enough last night, and that's something. As much of a souvenir as he's gonna get, anyway. "Let me take a shower, and we can hit the road."


End file.
